Saturday, December 10, 2005

Horse Dust

Driving toward the coast the sunset held a bright blue sky and brilliant orange hues gleaming beneath the clouds. Clouds that reared like a team of horses with their hooves in the air, forcefully pulled back. Clouds that shown the bridle's bit cutting into the horses mouths spewing spittle to mix with the dust. And this dust takes the shape and colores of an aurora borealis streaming from the mane and tail of these clouds.

What a time to write this! To write an acknowledgment of my son's entry in to the adult work a day world. He has fullfilled a dream since he was sixteen. Dammit he has begun to break the bonds of his mother. He is an academic and he's won essay contests. But, instead of concepts and ideas, he will live where brick meets mortar, and amperage is pressurized by voltage and where fluid flows through pipe. It is concrete, stable, and blue collar. In any event, it is his first steps toward mature masculinity-a sense of independence and an identity through his work.

Isn't this the age old struggle between the mothers desire to protect her sons and in the process infantilize them? When a man begins breaking the psychic bonds created by these maternal instincts-he is ravaged by confusion, fear or anger. He'll need the men in his life as he breaks through the infantilism. He'll need us as models even as we struggle through our own doubts of masculinity. As I come from a generation of men raised by women, I hope women will be sensitive to this vulnerability.

Though I remain gaurded with my own pathos complicit with this: I hope men and women together, we would gain spiritual peace and not criticize but to nurture and support and we would grow in respect for one another and provide physical affection for each other. Is this too much to ask and are we capable of it?